


they had love for my revulsion

by charlesworthy



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Angst, Gen, Nightmares, bc i write him, it's just a piece regarding henry, slight body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 17:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10621470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlesworthy/pseuds/charlesworthy
Summary: Henry was a murderer.  He was insolent, indomitable, and entirely guilt free.  But there were still nightmares.





	

The memory was always fresh in Henry’s mind as the day he had made it.

A boy, no older than ten, killing every one in town with the sheer destructive force of his hatred.  That was the day he realized why his whispers could wilt plants, how his hands could choke without touching.

They killed the wolf, he always thought.  They deserved it.

He wrecked havoc on that village that some might have told him was his home.  Indiscriminately, he tore limbs from body, seared flesh with a dark power that most mages wouldn’t touch in their life times.  Was it an innate gift to him, or was it born of his hatred – and the hatred those held for him?  Who cared?  He used that power to kill every last person in the village.

It wasn’t a fire that crinkled skin. It wasn’t heat that seared flesh, that charred sinew.  Henry used primal, dark forces, beyond his own reckoning to annihilate every one.  They deserved it, for taking away the only creature that felt love for Henry, and the only thing he loved back.

To Henry, it was a good memory.

But the nightmares…  Gods above, the nightmares haunted him.

He dreamed of their blackened flesh, cracking as they moved.  He dreamed of their sunken faces, their swollen eyes boring holes into his skin.  They shimmered in the light, wet with tears they held as they cried.  They cried for him.

In the memories, they cried for him to _stop_.  They pleaded.  “Spare my children.”  “Don’t take my wife.”  In the memories, they recoiled from him, seeing him not as a dangerous child grieving, but as a monster.

_He liked that._

In the dreams, it was the opposite.  They saw him as a child, grieving painfully.  They approached him, skin creaking and muscles tearing with the motion.  Their broken fingers touched his skin and _he_ recoiled.  He shrunk back into the vulnerable child, laughing through his own fears.

“I killed you!” he’d cry.  “You hate me!”

In the memories, men spat at him before he broke their necks.  The fit of rage that granted him that power to kill had not taken his mind in the same moment.  He knew what he did, though others would tell him he didn’t.

In the dreams, he ran.  His legs carried him through mud and brush.  But he’d fall, like they did.  He’d clamor and crawl frantically away, like they did.  He’d stare, scared, heart pounding, like they did.

And they chased him down, like he had.

He’d blown open doors, yelling and shouting curses and hexes that seemed to hum in his blood, telling him the right things to say and do.  He found children cowering in corners, and he killed them, too.

They cornered him.  They descended upon him, the smell of their charcoal meat stinging his nose.

They didn’t ask him why, because they knew.  They didn’t ask him how, because they witnessed it.

Their peeling fingers touched his arms and legs.  He’d flinch, but they’d continue.  Hands, all over his body.

They didn’t press or tug, they caressed.  They held him.  They bent down, curling beside him even as their flesh crackled and glowed with a red-hot quality that Henry had granted them.

They whispered to him.

“We don’t hate you,” they said.

He tore himself away, trying to find some asylum from their misty-eyed stares and shriveled lips.  There was no escaping.  They were everywhere.  They always got him, hands tenderly holding his arms, his cheeks, his hands.

“It’s okay,” they said.  They kissed away his tears, they ruffled his hair, they held him close through his tears.  “We forgive you.”

And Henry wept, because he could never understand.

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by AJJ's ["White Face, Black Eyes"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITDaToPnsNs)
> 
> first posted on my [rp blog](http://cawfulkiller.tumblr.com/post/159533210794/they-had-love-for-my-revulsion)
> 
> I really like writing Henry


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